In 1653 there were but fifty or sixty families in the limits of what now comprises Portsmouth, Newcastle, Rye, Greenland and Newington.

Mason's claim on the land," afterwards granted 28 May, 1653, allowed to be called Portsmouth, "and the line of the township of Portsmouth to reach from the sea by Hampton lyne to Wynnacot river, leaving the propriet'rs to their just right."

In 1652 the records of the Bank were copied, suppressing all the selectmen regarded not worth preserving, thus depriving us of many of the early incidents of local history.

The increased burden in taxation, direct or indirect, in combination with an economic crisis (the end of the 30 Years' War, although the war did not affect Switzerland directly) caused the peasants in the Canton Luzern to revolt in May 1653, beginning in the village of Entlebuch.

The authorities suppressed the revolt in June 1653 (Skirmish at Wohlenschwil, May 24th/June 3rd 1653 - the Catholic Cantons used the Gregorian Calendar, the Protestant Cantons the Julian Calendar).

In the Treaty of Mellingen, peace was restored; rebel leaders were executed, others were banned, the communities involved in the rebellion fined.

Volumes include diaries, 1852-1884, of James Gwyn and, 1850-1851, of his son Hugh Gwyn, kept while he was a student at Emory and Henry College, 1850-1851, and while he was a teacher at Holly Springs, Miss., 1852; account books for various business activities; and remedies and recipes for home and farm preparations.

Early papers, 1653-1834, consist mostly of land grants, surveys, court summons, reports of tax fees, fines, forfeitures, and other financial and legal items chiefly pertaining to Hugh Gwyn, William Lenoir, and James Gwyn I. Included are typed transcriptions of Virginia court records dated 1653, 1661, 1748.

Some of the papers from the 1820s are of Walter R. Lenoir as clerk of the Superior Court for Wilkes County.

Administrative/Biographical history: Following the German Peasants' War of 1525, there erupted in 1653 in central Switzerland a rural revolt, perceived by contemporaries as a revolutionary challenge to the existing political order.

The rebellion began in December 1652 and stemmed from the rural reaction to a devaluation of coin, on which the rural economy was dependent, which occurred in the midst of a depression.

It ended in late 1653 in a crushing defeat, and the ensuing political settlement was to endure for almost 150 years.

The work of the Italian violinist-composer Arcangelo Corelli exercised incalculable influence over the following generation of composers, not least over Handel, who worked briefly with him in Rome in 1707.

Corelli was born at Fusignano in 1653 and studied in Bologna, an important musical centre.

His later career was chiefly in Rome, where he served the exiled Catholic Queen Christina of Sweden, Cardinal Pamphili and the young Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he lived for a number of years.

After the dissolution of the Rump Parliament (20 Apr 1653), Cromwell told the Council that it no longer existed and together with the Council of Officers, instituted a new Council of State (30 Apr 1653).

Following the dissolution of the Nominated Assembly (16 Dec 1653), the Council of State was modified under the Instrument of Government, 1653, the first written Constitution of the Commonwealth.

If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2003.

______________________________ ______________________________ President of the Senate Speaker of the House I certify that H.B. No. 1653 was passed by the House on May 6, 2003, by the following vote: Yeas 140, Nays 0, 1 present, not voting.

______________________________ Chief Clerk of the House I certify that H.B. No. 1653 was passed by the Senate on May 27, 2003, by the following vote: Yeas 31, Nays 0.